Model Energy Landscapes of Low-Temperature Fluids: Dipolar Hard Spheres

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model for the energy landscape of low-temperature dipolar hard sphere fluids, revealing phase transitions and structural changes as temperature decreases.

Contribution

It introduces a non-Gaussian energy landscape model for dipolar hard sphere fluids and links thermodynamics with phase transition behavior.

Findings

The model captures the entire excitation profile from high temperature to glass transition.

The fluid undergoes a first-order transition into a columnar phase of dipolar chains.

The stability limit of the fluid is identified at the ideal-glass transition point.

Abstract

An analytical model of non-Gaussian energy landscape of low-temperature fluids is developed based on the thermodynamics of the fluid of dipolar hard spheres. The entire excitation profile of the liquid, from the high temperatures to the point of ideal-glass transition, has been obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations. The fluid of dipolar hard spheres loses stability when reaching the point of ideal-glass transition transforming via a first-order transition into a columnar liquid phase of dipolar chains locally arranged in a body-centered tetragonal order.